Authors Preface

‘Death’ is the greatest enigma in life. It has baffled humankind from times out of mind. And yet despite all attempts to solve the mystery, it has remained as mysterious as ever before.

The Saints of the highest order – Sant Satgurus, or the Perfect Masters – who come down from the region of deathlessness and are ever in tune with the Infinite, know the shadowy character of death. They teach us that death is not what it seems. It is a joyous birth (born again) into a life more beatific than we ever dreamed of here. It is just as sun sets on this side of the globe and rises in the other part. They point out and demonstrate to us the way to conquer the seemingly invincible and terrifying death and thus become fear-free. This is the grand lesson that we can get from the Saints. They assure us that we do not die – we simply shake off the physical vesture of the body to work in other bodies: physical or astral or causal; and ultimately rise to realize our divine nature and see oneness in God – the All-consciousness and bliss.

In the pages that follow, an attempt has been made to suggest the way to the solution of tangled riddle in succinct and lucid language which may be easily intelligible to the reader. The study offers a somewhat simplified approach to the abstruse and esoteric doctrines pertaining to the body and the soul, the relation between the two. It also offers the methods to control the mind so as to make it a willing and obedient instrument for transcending body-consciousness, which can be a foretaste of the actual death-experience which all of us have to undergo ultimately.

The glory of a Perfect Master lies not only in teaching merely on the level of intellect but in encompassing a direct, immediate and first-hand experience of what he teaches. The science of the Masters is the only spiritual science which is demonstrable in the laboratory of the mind. It yields out-of-body experiences, opening up vast vistas of spiritual awakening into unearthly realms of indescribable splendour; and all this while living in the flesh. Salvation to be real must be gained right now and here. The way to the Spirit and Power-of-God is always open to the sincere seekers after Truth, but success on the Path depends on the divine grace mediated through some God-man. One who is fired with the love of God is sure to find the means to reach God. It is just a question of the intensity of yearning. Where there is sincere and genuine love of God, He comes in the garb of a Saint to lead the aspirants to Himself. May His Light be a lamp unto the feet of those who aspire for the Life of the Spirit, and lead the aspirants to a human pole where that Light shines.

My heartfelt thanks go to Shri Bhadra Sena specially, and to other dedicated souls like him who in one form or another helped in bringing out this work; and spent long hours over the manuscript in a spirit of loving devotion.